Our Birthday!
I got back on the bus yesterday - a nine hour trip up and back but it was worth it. One thing though, any fool who visits Brisbane in winter and thinks of moving there should visit in February...it was soooo hot and humid you sweated even in bed at 4am in the morning - you sweated doing nothing...it just ran in rivers...something happens to my brain when its like that and I get really ratty - but I put a lid on it as much as I could and we had a good time. I am waiting for my sister Veronica's photos as she took more than me and better shots - I left my precious camera in a taxi cab and didn't realise till the next day and guess what I got it back!!! There is a God.
This photo is of my sister Joan who turned 50 and for whom the gathering was organised - and her daughter Alanah.










Here is the life and light of any party, as we all know. She made our birthday cake as well...and made sure we got plenty of exercise looking at shops...something she is famous for is trawling every shop on the street...

And the last photo is of Melissa and her Chris who came all the way from Sydney just for the day, and shouted us all out for our birthday dinner. All that was missing for me was Ali and her boyfriend - Melbourne was just a bit too far. I know Joan was and I am so grateful for those who came and made the time what it was - and even though Ali couldn't be there she was on the phone a lot and we had some lovely talks as usual...

On the bus trip back I went into towns off the highway which the bus had to stop at and was so pleased to be able to see yet more places Don and I spent time in when we were young. Its sort of bittersweet when this happens - its like you can see the ghosts of yourselves still young but like shadows on the streets... but its also lovely as well because we both always lived our lives as if the glass was always half full - and it was - no matter how bad things got and many times we wondered how we got through, we seemed to be able to make each other laugh - usually it was when things got really bad that we laughed the most, mainly at the blackness - maybe it was hopeless laughter but better than the misery faces I see about me of those with nothing much wrong at all.

I think its a very human thing to do, to poke your tongue out at adversity and make it a joke, be it as black as - it defuses things which could grow over you and take you over till you lose touch with reality...like when someone bemoans having an ache or pain which is trivial and temporary- one can always think of those in Haiti and compared their suffering to that. Just waking up able bodied in the morning and smelling the new day is a privilege not a right...

(there's those darn old three dots again... for those low class ex family snoopers - I know when you're there petals...enjoy your time in New Zealand...your pressie and phone call for Joanie's big fifty must have gotten lost again. )